First gut

[petemoss]

So I finally decided to gut a lock. I took this Master lock and gutted it.





I don't really have proper tools for this, but I took my watchmkers setup to try and control stray pins and springs and gave it a go. I used a piece of cut up coke bottle as a follower, which works but not great. I also have a really nice pair of watchmakers tweezers which work great for gears and stuff and not so much for controlling springs and pins.

Getting it apart went fine, but putting it back together has been a challenge with these pointy tweezers. The pointy tips go into the coil of the springs and pins want to rotate within the tweezer grips. Maybe I will get some pinning tweezers one of these days

As a ex-copier technician I have lost 8 hundred thousand million e-clips underneath a copier, so fortunately getting the c-clip off was the easy part.

It's a start.

[petemoss]

Oh yeah, I didn't expect the springs to be different, so I just dumped them out. I'm not really sure if that short one belongs to the particular pin stack or not. Oh well. Do you guys figure that this one short spring was intentional or maybe just a spring that has been crushed over time with us-types messing with it?

[pemlock]

I have gutted quite a few locks, and I have yet to see one with different springs, although I know it's used in some. Not even ASSA locks have that normally. If it's a new lock I'd assume it's intentional. If it's 2nd hand, maybe someone else gutted it and replaced one of the springs.

Btw, Sparrows have a good pair of tweezers, and a set of followers (which includes one that fits ASSA locks, should you ever need that). A pinning tray is handy as well; I prefer that over the "pinning mats" most companies sell. They are not as easy to find as most people seem to make their own. I bought one in wood from Bosnian Bill, via e-Bay (as a way to sponsor his channel mostly), and I also have one 3d-printed.

[petemoss]

Thanks pemlock. A pinning tray, follower, and pinning tweezers would definitely make life better. I may try to pick some up after the holidays.

This lock is strictly a locksport type lock, which was passed down to me buy another picker, so I figured that spring may have have been damaged in the past. I had not considered that someone may have replaced it previously, but that very well may be the case.

Thanks again,

[Squelchtone]

Nice job on the gut. Master's quality is looking like they cast their pins from pot metal.. I wonder if that other spring has a purpose such as anti bumping, etc.

Squelchtone

[petemoss]

Thanks Squelchtone. I'm not experienced enough yet to be able to tell about the pin construction. Yeah, they may have done it on purpose as a security measure. Not sure.

[GWiens2001]

Nice job on the gut. Master's quality is looking like they cast their pins from pot metal.. I wonder if that other spring has a purpose such as anti bumping, etc.

Squelchtone

+1 on possibly being for bump resistance. It may have been put in by someone other than the factory. I do that myself.

It may also be as Pemlock suggested, replacement for a spring that was damaged or decided to take flight to locations unknown.

Perhaps it is just my eyes on a tiny screen, but does the bottom of that shorter spring look deformed?

Gordon

[petemoss]

It does seem that the very end of it has been pulled away from the rest of the coil.

[cledry]

That is partially gutted. You didn't get down to its balls.

[petemoss]

Well then pardon me while I whip this out........Actually, I don't know how.

I assume that to drop the balls I have to remove the spring loaded latching mechanism (whatever that thing is actually called). Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out how to do that. I kind of feel like there is a keeper that is pressed in on the one flat side of that cylinder, but I can't tell for sure. I figure I will just break some tools if I keep messing with it.